Without being here, you have no idea of what we face in this State. Every year it gets worse and every year we think we have a handle on it. The number of dead deer on the roadsides is ever-increasing and we're seeing it happen more often. It used to be prevalent during the rut; but, we're seeing a lot of dead deer along the roadsides all year long now.

Many of our liberal citizens have come up with all kinds of ideas on how to curb the problem. NONE have worked to any degree and the bulk of their ideas are VERY costly. It seems like many of them have 'come around' to allow hunting as one of the best methods. Problem is, it's almost too late. Their actions have allowed the deer herds to increase to the point of ridiculousness.

Some of our landlords graciously welcome us to their properties. The ones who have the biggest problems ARE in a position to make demands on our effectiveness. If not, others are standing in line to take our places.

I'll say it another way, you have to see it to believe it in some areas of our State.

Wolf,
You are not offending anyone. As Len said, the population here is out of control. We have close to 300,000 deer in the tiny state of Maryland. Maryland is a good agriculture state that produces tons of different crops and lots of bedding areas. The liberal gun snatchers and anti-hunters have only helped to increase the herd to, IMHO, the point of oversaturation. We have a responsibility to help keep the whole herd healthy. You can't just keep developing land into new housing, schools and shopping malls, pushing the deer into an overcrowding situation, w/o having some plan to thin the herd. Up till now the liberals didn't acted like they cared about the health of the animals. Just this year we are allowed to hunt on certain Sundays because the problem is so bad. I think Sarah Brady hit one with her car
No hunter wants to leave a fawn w/o a mother to take care of it. That is human nature. Regardless, I accepted the terms of the deal and now I must live up to my end of the bargin. Unfortunately there is no real way to know if the doe you shoot has a fawn in the thicket, but shoot the does I must and hope for the best. I have already seen a dozen or so buck in velvet. Groups of 20-25 deer traveling in a herd. In some small way this is a form of QDM I guess.
This farm backs up to a huge state park and my guess is that you could shoot a deer a day and never put a dent in the population.
So the short answer is "no" you are not offending anyone, this is just a job that has to be done, and if not by me and a few of my close friends...then it will be done by someone else![]

I figured you must have a huge population problem to warrant a season so early. We have some ranches here that will not allow any hunters. They always seem to be the first to complain about having too many deer.[:@] I am in no way, shape or form an anti hunter. I just had to ask. Good luck hunting.

To give another example of the problem here in Maryland - One Saturday morning about a month ago, I got out early before the clean-up crews. I saw five dead deer on the roadside. Two of those were on the Maryland portion of the Washington DC beltway. Another two on Interstate 270 and the other on a heavily traveled two lane.
That's five cars that were damaged in one night and five chances for people to get killed since these were all 55 mph roads.
We're not taking offense at your question since it is a very legitimate one. I expect that you would see it our way if you were here in Maryland. Also, it's not an open season, it's special crop damage permits for specific properties.

ANother reason for the tremendous population problem is that Maryland is the land of treehuggers. Land access is really tough to come by. Even when you get it you can have problems with the neighbors. We had a piece of property one time that was adjacent to a large all woods park on one side and a neighborhood of 2-5 acre lots with $500,000 to million dollar homes on the other. When we first started hunting the neighbors called the DNR. They came by and checked us...no problem. They took our vehicle tag numbers and said they wouldn't bother us. The neighbors called again... the DNR/Park police said we were legitimate and not to worry. Then they neighbors started on the land owner. When they got no results they started making false complaints about us shooting dogs and gunshots in the neighborhood. We were bowhunting only. The landowner finally caved in and said they just had too many people pestering the crap out of them and they didn't need it. She knew it wasn't happening but decided it was easier to cave into the treehuggers than answer the phone calls and threats. I did get to hunt it for 3 years. It was probably the most over populated and beautiful piece of woods I've ever hunted in Maryland. It's still there and not being hunted.

I don't think you can blame "tree huggers". I think it is more along the lines of "uneducated tree huggers". If tree huggers (which I consider myself to be) were educated to the benifits of herd thinning they may go for it. Unfortunately it usually takes their "vauleable" shrubs being eaten or a collision with a deer to make them see the benifits. It's really too bad.

I have a couple of more questions?
1) How many deer are you allowed to harvest during the couse of one year in Maryland?
(I can harvest two in Montana. Sometimes more if they issue special permits?)

2) How long is your total hunting season.
(Montana is 11-weeks. 6-weeks archery, 5-weeks-rifle.)

3) Does the state of Maryland even fine a person for shooting a deer out of season? (a.k.a poaching)

I feel for you guys, I am sure I would be out there with you, if I lived there.

For the most part it is unlimited on does and you can take two bucks per weapon. Each weapon has it's own season. Some county's will vary.

Season starts Sept 15 with bow and ends Jan 31. Gun is two week , a 3 day early smoke pole and later a two week smoke pole season.

I'm sure.

YUP... I'm sure they'll fine you. If they didn't the "Treehuggers" would demand your job. Besides that... the Treehuggers have been educated and talked to for decades with little results. That's how the herd got this way. We've lobbied for Sunday hunting etc to get more hunters involved. We were screaming for more bag limits before the herd got out of hand. They'd rather do a study or an environmental impact study than kill a deer. They're usual proposals include, sterilization, transplanting, slower speeds etc etc etc. Our last Governor(an avowed anti) even placed an anti on the commission that sets seasons and bag limits. When the guy took office he held a news conference and invited all the press. The main topic of his conference was his intended goal of abolishing bowhunting. With that type in charge it's a miracle we have hunting. The state is broken up into 4 zones. I live on the border of two. Within 15 minutes(across 2 zones) of the house I can shoot 9 bucks and enough does to feed Baltimore. Len and I started crop damage around the first of July the last 2 years. Our crop damage permits for last year and this year end on Jan 31st. Our new ones on one property started Feb 2nd I believe it was. So in fact... we are right now in the mist of a 19 month season.[&:] That said, we hunt two 5 acre parcels, a 75 acre parcel and a 265 acre patch. That's Len, his boy, myself and another fellow with another 2 or 3 occasionally on the 265 acre patch.

Dave: You forgot about the 'House'. It's 16 acres of total woodland with an abandoned 2 story house right in the middle of it. It's a great place to hunt when the weather is REALLY bad. BTW, I didn't ask Mark how many acres at the horse farm.

Wolf killer: Tonight I was in a tree and had a doe with a new fawn walk right under my stand. She had NO IDEA that I was there and even stopped broadside 10 yards from my stand to 'do her business' - all the time looking away from me. She had NO IDEA that she was a dead deer, but I let her walk. The fawn was probably about 1 week old.