I have been reading through all of the post's about the lack of deer and the poaching problems, but the one thing I haven't seen mentioned yet, and maybe people don't realize, is nuiscance permits. The dec hands these out like you wouldn't believe. If a farmer calls them up and says he has crop damage the dec hands over nuiscance permits. The problem with this is onefarmer may get 15 permits,and one may get 2 or 3.Now I am not saying that they shouldn't get these permits, because some areas are really bad with crop damage,but if the farmer is a hunter thentry to solve some of the problem during deer season.When they go out and use all of the permits,and then they don't see any deer during deer season they blame the dec.If the farmers with crop damage would allow hunting from people other than themselves, then theymay be able to reduce the crop damage.But instead they post the land, don't allow anybody on, and they shoot deer all year on nuiscance permits.If you kill the deer before season how can you expect to see deer during season?
Another problem too is menonites. yes that's right, menonites. WhereI live there are alot of menonites,some of these guys arebigger poachers than any one around. They kill any deer that they see whether they have tags or not.It doesn't matter to them because they may tag one and anything theykill after that goes untagged. They don't hesitate to trespass across someones property either. Just try to get charges pressed against them.... good luck.
The dec has alot of issues to work out.