I have to agree, I was all for the herd reduction several years ago and I still feel that it was needed, but my area has been hit hard and is really showing the signs of if. These past two years I spent more time archery hunting than ever before, I had a very flexible work schedule and 2 weeks of vacation for the end of the regular archery season and doe sightings were minimal. The past two years I have seen way more bucks than does while scouting, spotting, and hunting, not to mention my game camera has proved this. I would say that for every doe I saw, I would see 7 or 8 bucks, yes this is fun, but in the big scheme of things it doesn't seem healthy.

As far as just not shooting does, yeah, in theory it sounds good, but all you are doing is leaving a tag for another person to fill. The past two years I havn't bought a doe tag for this very same reason but they are getting bought up by guys who hunt the adjacent property and they do their deer drives and bust the does.

My grandfather hunted every day of this rifle season and in that time he saw a total of 3 deer, all were crossing a narrow cut between two thick patches of brush before daylight.

Like I said, I am fortunate to live in what many would consider to be one of the best spots in the state for deer (size, numbers, quality, and habitat wise). This is farm country where even before the herd reduction, there was plenty of food for deer. Soybeans, corn, clover, and alfalfa fields are abundant and the woods are packed with oaks and great browse. One of my favorite patches of land to hunt is 100 acres in size (the timber) and is surrounded on two sides by corn fields, one side by a clover field, and the other side is a soybean field. The woods have some excellent bedding areas (small ravines above a creek bottom that are full of dead falls mixed with multi-floral rose bush), plenty of water with two different streams running through the property and two ponds on the property. The open parts of the woods are mostly white oaks, and there is little to no hunting pressure. Sounds like a great spot right? Well, I have been through these woods several time in the past week and found a total of two different sets of deer tracks.

I don't know exactly what needs to be done, I can sit here and act like I know how to fix all the problems but in all honesty, there are more underlyingproblems than anybody in the general public knows about so what I say wouldn't work. All I know is that something needs to change!