ORIGINAL: doughboysigep
atlas,
I think you were getting a little too literal on some of Kottens statements. I think he was on the right track with his poaching ideas and hunting as a privilege.
I agreed with him on the poaching thing.......that's why I didn't say anything about that. Hunting is a privilege but he took it further to imply a responsibility of a hunter to manage the herd for bigger bucks........that is just laughable and again he is pushing his personal desires on everyone else with no regaurd for those that don't share his opinions.
The DEC does try and control the population on a local scale - that's why we have DMUs (which are relatively small). Why do you think we were not issued any permits in 7M and why it is more difficult in some areas than others to get 1 or 2 permits. It would be impractical to try and reduce the size of the DMUs any moret than they are, whoever ther could always be room for adjustment, if/when needed, as the herd fluctuates.
I know what your saying........and I know the system. It just doesn't work. They wait until the deer are slaughtered down to almost nothing before they hold back permits. Every DMU I hunted this year was an ALL for first permits and 80-90% for second permits and I saw a grand total of 4 does all season........killed 2 of them. These are all the zones that people are reporting seeing few if any deer and yet the permits continue to fly. There are places in the state that have too many deer...........just not as many as the DEC hands out truck loads of permits for.
Is it no deer or 3 deer??? Most people would consider 3 deer in a season quite a success and would assume that the hunting was good and deer pop. is good. Maybe the 3 deer were on private land?? Either way 3 deer is better than no deer.
All 3 were on public access lands. I didn't say that MY year was unsuccessful.......I killed almost every deer I saw though. I was fortunate enough to see a few and thank goodness I was able to seal the deal. My dad saw nothing, my oldest brother saw 3 deer all year and he hunted pretty hard for archery and gun........my older brother took a doe with bow and a doe with gun. We consider ourselves VERY fortunate to have that many deer in a year when almost everyone we talk to is miserable.
Last year I could count on one hand how many deer I saw and I hunted over 40 days total.
20-30 deer in a group - do you really think that is a good thing?
YES.........but forget good or bad...........what does that tell you about the deer numbers?? There were supposedly way fewer deer that long ago and you needed 5 guys just to kill one doe. Now anyone can kill 5 does a year and supposedly there are way MORE deer out there..........yet you only see single deer hopping around. It's just not true........plain and simple.
I don't think more deer necessarily leads to bigger racked deer. Yes there may be a few extra big buck that make it
Why isn't that good enough??
More bigger bucks slipping through the cracks AND more deer for guys who don't really care what a buck "scores"
If the herd is overpopulated, food sources become more scarse, therefore less for the deer to eat = poor nutrition = smaller antlers.
I highly doubt we could ever reach overpopulated status that would cause those problems........not with thousands of hunters not even seeing deer. Maybe if we had more deer we would have more hunters [
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The young hunter thing is a valid and important point. If you had one with you opening morning, they would be hooked for life. I personally hunted many years with my dad as a young kid (a few days a year). We saw few deer in those years and he didn't get a deer when i was with him until the year before I started hunting. Didn't make any difference to me (however I did want to see him get a deer in a big way). I am only 31 and times have changed drastically since I was a kid. I was brought up to want to hunt and enjoy the time spent in the woods. We had video games, but not like today. We wanted to hunt. Kids today don't and aren't being taught. Too bad really.
yup
Here's an idea for all those that didn't see any deer. First and foremost they went nocturnal after the first few days. I just don't mean partly nocturnal, they were hunkered down big time. Like many, I/we saw little or no deer after the first few days. They were there, trust me.
Here is the sad part.......the area I took my big buck a few years ago had 9 guys hunting there opening day. They saw ZERO deer. 9 guys!!......OPENING DAY!!......ZERO!! They hunted for days and saw nothing......it finally snowed and they went back and found one set of tracks all day. WTF???
I have spoken to a lot of guys that saw NOTHING on opening day............anyone can get skunked any day but when you sit all day on opening day with thousands of guys pushing around in the woods and you see nothing...........that's not good. The no tracks thing is worse.
The snow makes it easy to tell. After a month or so, when muzzle started, they were absolutely everywhere (another reason to extend the ML season).
I hunted 5 out of the 7 days of ML season and saw no deer. I don't know anyone that I have spoken to that even saw a deer during ML season.
The second thought I have about hunters that see no deer is that they very well may have been out 10 day or 20 or whatever, but those days were maybe only a few hours here or there and not "full" days. Just my opinion and isn't meant specifically towards anyone here. I know people that hunt only a lttle bit here and there and they will be the 1st ones to b*tch because there are no deer.
Agreed........I know plenty of guys that bitch after not seeing a deer by 8 o'clock their first day out. These are not the guys I am reffering to.