ORIGINAL: bronko22000
BTBowhunter - Your saying that the PGC's deer management has more positive aspects than negative. Can you please elaborate? My grandson can't wait to go hunting with me but if things keep going the way they are now, he is going to get discouraged real fast from not seeing any deer.
I've heard that the PGC has stated that they may have errored in their program. IMO they should go back to the one deer and done for a while. Give the hunter the option of harvesting either one buck or one doe. And in areas with a lot of public land with numerous deer, develop a landowner co-op system where the landowner get a monitary refund for each deer taken by legally licensed hunters. You could have a 'landowner coupon' attached to your license and if you harvest an animal on his property, give the coupon to the landowner. Then at the end of the season, he can send them in to the PGC for refund. They do this out west and it seems to be working.
Here's a few thoughts on the benefits of the program. Some is fact and some is opinion.The opinion part seems to be shared by the majority of hunters that I know....
1 We no longer mow down every male deer the minute he sprout 3 inches of bone from his head. Will we ever produce the trophies that the midwest does? Not with almost a million hunters. Are the antler restrictions the best way to manage for quality bucks? No, not with the numbers of hunters we have but it is better than what we had. The average age of our harvested bucks is older than it has ever been (at least since records have been kept)
2 Our doe population is down in many areas where it needed to go way down. Is that unpopular in some areas? yes it is. Is it a fact that there are vast areas of this state that have graduated to the pole timber stage and that the pole timber nowconsists of tree species thatare less than ideal for wildlife habitat.Those areas arenot going to support the deer numbers we got used to for a very long time. The doe mortality study in one of those areas showed that only 8-15% of adult doe mortalitycame from hunters so it's not just about doe tags or the concurrent season.
The good news is that there are still many areas with high populations and hunters who are willing to adapt are still doing well.
3 This one is strictly from personal observation and may or may not represent the whole state. IMHO, the gun season has evolved into a less rushed situation. It used to be that your chances went way down after opening day because the deer were bouncing aronud the woods like pinballs and anything legal had a pretty lousy chance of survival. Now, hunters have to look at the head harder and make sure it's either a legal doe or a legal buck. My experience has been that the shooting is way less on opening day but the HUNTING stays good all season for those who get out and match wits with the deer. This has been unpopular with the crowd of "Monday morning stump sitters" but has made it better for the hunter who enjoys more than a one day hunt.