The Future of Hunting in Ohio
- Thread starter bowhunter1023
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Thanks Jay. The link to this thread has been forwarded to me 3 times. Lots of good points. I was just waiting for someone to hit the nail on the head to weigh in.
Mickey Merrie
Junior Member
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Go around and interview all the nonresidents flooding our state to hunt in October and November… ask them why they come here. Is Ohio perfect? No. But to say they are waiting on other states to figure out what to do is absurd. Look around man. Ohio literally has some of the best deer hunting in the entire country.
Big_Holla
Senior Member
I get it. I went overboard trying to get my point across. The state has a one buck rule that sets it apart from others such as my state. That’s what I feel it has going for it. Name a few things that Ohio has spearheaded in deer management that sets it apart from other states other than that in the last 10 years? What deer/wildlife studies are being done in Ohio for any purpose? CWD Ohio has followed other states with the same reactions to new cases. As the podcast mentioned, as a new county gets a case so will it get a baiting ban, is that a national protocol? Seems that way. Meigs County was mentioned in the podcast about EHD, what study concluded that it was still feasible to keep it a 3 deer county after last years outbreak? JMO but these agencies don’t look down to the county level when something truly affects the deer herd like EHD does, nothing like a CWD response. I feel they also don’t want to get involved in having to listen to discussions like these because it’s easier to say the hunters will bitch about it anyway. License sales are still doing good and they don’t want to rock the boat by making any changes, I get it. Unlimited baiting will continue because it sells licenses but yet the poll here tells another story IMO, all related to the future of Ohio’s hunting and enjoyment of the outdoors.
One buck.
7-day firearm season (short, compared to other states).
Incentivized antlerless tags.
Urban area antlerless tags.
Age/Sex/Condition data sampling at popular processing facilities statewide during the 7-day firearm season.
Regarding CWD…
Early firearm season (to remove potentially-infected deer off the landscape sooner).
Statewide surveillance of road-killed and hunter harvested mature deer.
Mandatory testing inside disease surveillance areas.
VOLUNTARY culling on private lands within disease surveillance areas to reduce population density.
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I respect your opinion, Chuck. But I think there is way more going on than you realize. We can all sit here and bitch about everything we would change if WE were in the driver’s seat… but despite all the opinions here about “what Ohio is doing wrong” we live in a DESTINATION state for whitetail deer hunting. We are what many states WISH they could be. That’s a fact.
I do agree on several things. This has remained civil. I believe some eyes have been opened. At a minimum, people have paused to reflect opposing views.
It is pretty clear why this is the best hunting forum in Ohio. Well done all.
I'll fill in my 2 cents on CWD next year. Our county had one positive test. We were just starting to rebound nicely from EHD and now this? Ugh. I will remain open minded and wait to see how it is handled. Nothing I say or do will change any of it.
It is pretty clear why this is the best hunting forum in Ohio. Well done all.
I'll fill in my 2 cents on CWD next year. Our county had one positive test. We were just starting to rebound nicely from EHD and now this? Ugh. I will remain open minded and wait to see how it is handled. Nothing I say or do will change any of it.
at1010
*Supporting Member*
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Allowing Sunday hunting
Allowing crossbows when others didn’t
Continued to allow baiting - when others banned it so Ohio hunters recruitment wouldn’t be hurt
Broke down areas from zones to counties - far
More accurate on a neighborhood level.
implemented and promoted recreational land owners to work with state biologist and foresters to help better manage their properties (I don’t hear about this from other states - altho I am sure it exists).
Added new state land to help access - I think we can all do more of this by working with ODNR.
I am with you, Jim. Nothing is perfect but I sure am proud to be a hunter in the Buckeye state.
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We were told over 10 years ago that Ohio would be eliminating the county based bag limits and managing on a level based of geographic locations and habitat types. There was a big OSU study completed to support this. Nothing ever came of this and it's hard to forget it. My county of Highland county is a perfect example. Half of it is wooded rolling hills with a decent deer population, and the other half is flat ag lands dotted with spardic small woodlots, much more comparable to Fayette county directly to the North, which has one of the lowest amount of deer kills in the entire state. Deer do not know political county boundaries. What ever came of this? I agree Ohio is well above many other eastern states as far as quality of deer hunting. Some of this is because of our regulations, and some of it is in spite of it. I don't support the argument that we should be happy because we have better deer hunting then states such as West Virginia or Michigan. It's apples and oranges. As with anything in life its okay to not be satisfied when you know there is a potential to do better. Mike Tonkovich made published comments just this fall about exploring a 2 buck bag limit in Ohio with a second earn a buck, in the name of killing more does. How would this impact Ohio deer hunting? Is being a 2 buck state a worthy price tag for killing more does?
Additional, the state really needs to shift from some of their outdated and archaic survey methods and embrace the technology that is now available to us. Thermal imaging drones are cheap compared to the manpower and time being spent on less accurate and more circumstantial surveys. This isn't just for deer, but any species of game. Im guessing this will happen eventually, but it will take much longer then necessary to make those adjustments. Just flying my drone in my area for the past 6 months I am confident I have a better pulse on local wildlife populations then anyone else, same with Brock. The drone doesn't have preconceived notions and it doesn't lie. We do not have a deer over population problem, we have a deer distribution problem. It's proven me both wrong and right on my own person opinions. But I'm not interested in opinion, only facts.
Additional, the state really needs to shift from some of their outdated and archaic survey methods and embrace the technology that is now available to us. Thermal imaging drones are cheap compared to the manpower and time being spent on less accurate and more circumstantial surveys. This isn't just for deer, but any species of game. Im guessing this will happen eventually, but it will take much longer then necessary to make those adjustments. Just flying my drone in my area for the past 6 months I am confident I have a better pulse on local wildlife populations then anyone else, same with Brock. The drone doesn't have preconceived notions and it doesn't lie. We do not have a deer over population problem, we have a deer distribution problem. It's proven me both wrong and right on my own person opinions. But I'm not interested in opinion, only facts.
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I see what you're saying. I do. But I see all those things as management tools to stave potential population growth, or to monitor disease. Ohio is a destination state for whitetails because of genetics and soil quality, not because the ODNR has implemented management tools to improve quality and quantity. Let's face it, Ohio is blessed with a great whitetail herd, the only thing the DNR has to do is not let hunters fuck it up by shooting too many bucks, the rest takes care of itself. I guess one could view that as management, and maybe they don't implement improvement mechanisms because they don't have to. Either way, though the deer and the natural landscape do the heavy lifting, not the odnr when it comes to Ohio being a quality whitetail state.
If you want to see solid examples of biologists working to manage for quality and or quantity, look at Arizonas Elk program. They have broken the state down into zones and managed them either for quantity or quality. With zones like #7 having over a 40% success rate on bulls or zone 10 with 400 class bulls drug out each year. Many of these zones are in places where elk really couldn't exist if it wasn't for the efforts of the Game and Fish commission creating thousands of water catchments. A browse through the record books is overwhelmingly littered with AZ giants.
Mickey Merrie
Junior Member
Pa. had county doe license allotments. Then they claimed they couldn't manage those county's appropriately due to the size and diversity of habitat. mature woods held less deer per square mile than did farming in the same county. Yet the majority of access was the mature woods and not the farms so deer were being wiped out in the woods and over capacity in the farms. Their answer? Game management units! Now the game management units cover several counties in all areas of the state. They took the issuing from the county Treasurer's office and now a firm in Kansas (?) issues them. But the good news is...less deer in the mature woods and more deer in the farm country! The only thing that increased were the fees as well as the number of antlerless deer permits, plus a 2 week season verses a 2 day season.
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With regards to CWD. It takes a 2 year incubation period till the symptoms show, so one deer identified could mean dozens infected!
I stated in another thread over a year ago here that you folks might want to stop the baiting before you end up with the problems we have here, as it is close proximity that passes it.
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With regards to CWD. It takes a 2 year incubation period till the symptoms show, so one deer identified could mean dozens infected!
I stated in another thread over a year ago here that you folks might want to stop the baiting before you end up with the problems we have here, as it is close proximity that passes it.
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Ohio is destined to have CWD everywhere, it's just a matter of time. The biggest vector contributing to its spread to new areas is the movement of captive deer. Years ago I looked at the cases in Ohio and each in could be traced back to captive deer farms. Unfortunately captive deer are managed as livestock under the Department of Agriculture and the deer farms fought tooth and nail to keepmit that way and out from under the control of the DOW.
What's amazing to me is that CWD is magically found everywhere they test for it. All they have to do is test long enough. Bottom line is that it's all over the place, always has been. But now that we're testing for it, suddenly it's a big deal.
at1010
*Supporting Member*
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Great post.
I am huge advocate for using you all and other certified drone operators. I think it’s insane not to contract that out for herd analysis, going forward.
I also agree in smaller managed areas within counties. That’s why my neighbors and I have formed a non formal coop. This would be greatly beneficial at a slightly larger scale based on the drone surveys provided
I still like the counties better than when it was “zone c” but I like the idea of further adapting and using our new tech as an advantage.
I would never support a 2 buck system and pray we never get to that point in this state.
I’d love to see more ways we can incentives hunters - not just landowners - to take advantage of habitat projects. Not just foodplots (yes I own a company that deals in this area lol) but I’d love to see more tsi, and educational programs on invasive control, why cutting timber is important, etc.
I’d say the above are all things we can agree on?!
maybe that’s the key is starting small where the far majority agrees and try to implement change that way, vs. recreating all the regulations.
I’d continue to support higher license costs to justify better technology use to drive positive change for all hunters who enjoy the Buckeye states game.
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I wanted to add to this, Mississippi is a three buck state with antler restrictions. (10 inch inside or 13 inch main beam) If our DOW cut that down to a one buck state the only thing it would accomplish is we'd be slap overrun with a shitload of dink bucks.
Even if you know where there are little pockets of higher deer numbers that doesn't mean you will be able to convince hunters there to kill more deer. Theres a reason certain areas have higher deer densities or lower numbers.
I think the big deal is that Prions are scary as F$%k!