Originally Posted by deerchump

Excalibur - You are making a TON of assumptions and presenting them as facts. And you refuse to listen to the inaccuracies in your assessments.

First off, where do you get the numnber of 250 outfitters? It may be true, but do you know that for a FACT, as in it can be verified somewhere other than your post?

How do you assume that all of the land that outfitters are now leasing was being hunted every day? You could easily argue that the outfitters are hunting the leased ground MORE than it was previously hunted thus increasing the harvest rate. Do you really think these outfitters are surviving with only having hunters one or two weeks per year? More likely they have a constant flow of hunters on that land. Also, do you really think that the hunters who leased it before were allowing it to be hunted every day? I wouldn't join a lease knowing that the land would be hunted every day. I would just hunt public land if I wanted to be on land with that much hunting activity.

Do you think that the resident hunters, whose private land is now being leased, just stop hunting? No, they move to other land and hunt there. So in effect, the outfitters are INCREASING the number of hunters in the state, correlating to an increased harvest rate, especially since you admit the deer herd is increasing.

Decreasing the huntable land does NOT decrease the number of hunters. It just adds more hunters per capita of huntable land, which would also increase the harvest rate. As you yourself stated, those big bucks only come out if kicked up. Well, by putting more hunters on the land, there is a higher chance of kicking up those big bucks.

Your argument about deer running to the supposed nonhunting land is semi legitimate. The problem with it is that this land cannot support every deer in the state. Nor can it support an increased number of deer for an extended time period. Over time, the deer would overpopulate that land thus eliminating its resources, which forces the deer back to the huntable land.

Also, as you stated your opinion that most out of state hunters and/or outfitter hunters are not shooting does, this would directly explain why the deer population is rising. By not shooting does, each one of those does reproduces (potentially twins or triplets) which every year would exponentially increase the deer herd. More deer will lead to a higher deer harvest.

Outfitters do NOT reduce the amount of huntable land. I alluded to this above, but I wanted to point this out since it is the main basis of your argument. Outfitters are not leasing the land to NOT hunt it. They ARE hunting the land so there is NO reduction in the amount of huntable land.

Basically it comes down to this regardless of all your assumptions:
More deer + More hunters = Higher deer harvest