EAB is definately having a huge impact on antlerless numbers ...............I manage for mature bucks and low doe numbers,and in normal years i ask that anyone that hunts our place take 2 does..........well this season I have seen twice the number of bucks (of all age structure) than does and the majority of does i have seen have been yearlings...........this you might say is a good thing, more bucks than does who would complain, until you realize that w/o a healthy doe population those total deer numbers, buck and doe, will drop off to almost nothing! I do believe the method that the DNR uses for est. herd population is skewed, EAB is a good way to keep numbers in check , but over use will decimate a herd and in the zone I hunt it is starting to take a toll, where even last year i could drive a stretch of hi-way and see deer every nite along the road there are none.........during the rut you could count on seeing deer in the ditch in certain stretches of road at least one - two a week.........this year ,none (it is a good thing, but also an indication of a population drop) In certain areas of the state there has been a major population drop, just because you have yet to see it doesn't mean you won't.......Gregh, don't you hunt in S.E. wi? Ask any average joe that hunts in that area what they have been seeing for deer this year? As for the rest of you that claim there are more deer, there are more deer than there were 25 years ago, but there are also more hunters and in turn more deer killed every season. It kinda balances things out and actually turns the other way in terms that we are killing more deer today than in the 80's, but not nessasarily because there are more deer for us to hunt, but rather we have become more proficient in our killing.

I don't doubt there are pockets that have high deer densities in Wi. and these pockets would benefit from the use of EAB.......but in areas that have reached the lands carrying capacity and stated to go the other way, EAB is ruining the deer herd.

BTW I have killed my share of mature bucks,so it's not as if I don't know what it takes to kill deer..............but you can't kill what isn't there.