I was watching the 12/16 airing of Deer and Deer Hunting....and they were talking about one of the counties in Wisconsin. In that county......they harvested..... 9 deer per square mile with BOWHUNTERS ONLY.

I'm still trying to digest that.

I'm assuming the fact that they allow urban archery would boost those numbers to that. It was some kind of average like......3 deer PER bowhunter.

Isn't that incredible? Success rate was well over 60% for bowhunters.

Did anyone else see this episode?

Haven't seen the episode yet but those numbers are incredible. Especiaaly when you consider how much harder/challenging bowhunting is.

Yeah....they could NEVER have achieved those numbers with guns!

(No need to go there, huh?)[&:]

In some areas in Wi the deer herds are just outrageous, in others its a site that needs to be cherrished to see a couple deer. In some areas that used to have tons of deer theres very few now. I blam THE DNR on this.

Didnt happen to catch what county?
I will guess waupaca or washington.

They were near Green Bay, I believe on 15,000 acres of private land.

Their Tiger Ridge Management Land is near Tigerton,WI which is in Shawano County but I remember someone on there saying that the land itself is in Waupaca County which is just a hop, skip, and a jump to the South.

On the 250 Acres I manage (130 Acres are mine) we took off 7 Deer with the bow. 0 gun hunting. .39 of a sq Mile. I thought it was a slow year.

It was in waupaca county where I do all my hunting from. They have what they call a sanctuary in Tigerton, WI where my mom grew up from and it's all managed. Waupaca County has the highest number of deer killed every year in WI.

A point that never seems to come up about these numbers is how much of this is attributable to the current 'earn-a-buck' program the DNR has in the state right now. (you first need to shoot an anterless deer to have the ability to harvest a buck at a later time)

I know of a fair number of friends, collegues, family members that come out to bow hunt in Waupaca Co, to get their earn-a-buck sticker so they can go back to their normal hunting areas during gun season and shoot a buck.

I know, not a super scientific approach, but just putting my 2cents out there.

don't even get me started on the DNR's supposed herd numbers that drive the earn-a-buck program [:@]