Well, spending so much time in just a few places it is not hard to realize......especially when conferring with others how things are going out in the trees. You see it with your own eyes and your family sees the same and all your friends and other locals see it as well. It's just a fact that in the areas I hunt the deer numbers are down. I have no problem with that in and of itself. What I do have a problem with is other people who have never even been there (YOU and a few others) telling me they know more about what is going on in my area then I and every other hunter that have spent our whole lives hunting in. I also have a problem with the DEC telling me that the local herd is large enough that they need to give out 2 doe tags to each hunter in those areas EVERY year. That is just ludicrous. The numbers are down and they have been going down for a long time........that is not the actual problem. The problem lies with the DEC and others failing to realize this or realizing it and not doing anything about it. The numbers are down......OK, just tinker with the tags a little and get it to bounce back in 2-3 years. No big deal and I am fine with that. I will wait patiently as long as I see someone actually doing something to help us and not make things worse.
This quote sums the whole thing up. Frankly I can't understand how you guys on the other side of this argument can't see this point.
How can you not have any merit with the opinions of the hunters who are out there year after year. I know you can't make the management decisions based on every Tom, Dick, and Harrys' opinion. But there are hunters out there with some validity in their assesment of the deer population in their area. And that validity is based solely on experience and observation afield. There is no scientific evidence or concrete studies done to back it up, but that doesn't mean that hunter shouldn't be discredited. In fact I would like that kind of hunters (and the hunters like him) opinion on the deer population everyday of the week instead of some DEC convoluted #'s.
I guess this is where I get hung up on this topic. Someone has hunted the same piece of land for 15 years. Family has hunted it for 40. Friends and locals communicate and have hunted all their lives. They drive the roads and observe deer all year round every year. You mean to tell me someone sitting in an office or someone on the other end of this computer for that matter is going to have a better graspe of what the status of the deer population is in that area? That person is going to be told they are wrong about the deer population? I aint buying it.