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Old 12-20-2011, 06:58 AM
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petasux
Nontypical Buck
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 1,925
Default knew things were bad but...

I made a post earlier this year about the lack of deer I was seeing.Figuring at the time it was just me here we are 2 months later and Ive kept track of things locally as best I could.Bow season closed and shotgun season opened at the begining of the month.Ive never seen so few bowhunters out and about, and most of the ones I talked to simply gave it up because they werent seeing anything or they still have tags, hunting pressure was very light most of the season.

Shotgun season opened and it was much the same, the party hunters werent seeing much, many tags went unfilled and people are not impressed.So I branched my search out a little and did some more digging around the internet.Other forums more closely related to Iowa hunting are full of people from all over the northern 2/3 of the state telling the same story and asking the same question, where are all the deer.

I went to the DNR websight and looked at the up to date deer harvest report and was actually suprised by it, my county only had 288 deer killed in it since the first of Oct, the next county over had 364 in the same time frame.I ran into a buddy of mine who actually works for the DNR and he was asking me where the deer have gone, not a good sign.

A few years back our Governer and the insurance lobby teamed up to lower the deer population, they started ggiving out stupid amounts of doe tags in an effort to lower the population, theyve done that but they show no signs of slowing down.Last year the DNR wanted to cut back on doe tags and the Gov vetoed it as he didnt want to lose the revenue they generated.Problem is were still killing just as many deer statewide with a low population as we were two years ago with a much higher population.

Ive written the DNR and asked if they were at least monitering the situation but have gotten no reply. I wound up killing a spike buck the last day of bow season as I couldnt see the sense in killing a doe.Muzzleloader season opened yesterday and I havent even been able to convince myself to get a license, dont even know if I will this year.Went out last night and drove around damn near 40 miles of great deer country, I seen exactly 4 does.

I really dont know if theres a way to address this issue, Im not looking to get back the population we used to have as it was crazy high, but we cant keep this up either or were gonna be reduced to squirrell hunting before long
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