Modifications approved for fall deer season
Wide-ranging rules changes include trial moratorium on Zone-T, limiting December hunt
By BOB RIEPENHOFF
Posted: April 29, 2006


It looks as if Wisconsin deer hunters will see wide-ranging rule changes this fall that include a two-year trial moratorium on October antlerless-only Zone T hunts, plus a one-year trial of a four-day statewide antlerless deer hunt in December.
The Natural Resources Board, meeting in Stevens Point last week, unanimously approved a modification to the rules package requested by the Legislature's Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules that limits the four-day statewide antlerless deer hunt, to be held Dec. 7-10, to a one-year trial this fall.

The committee has 10 days to review the board's action. But Steve Oestreicher, Chairman of the Wisconsin Conservation Congress, believes the rules package will be implemented.
"This was a motion that came directly from the JCRAR," Oestreicher said. "I would anticipate that they will go along with the board's approval and the season structure will be in place for this fall. It's certainly what the majority of the outdoor groups were in agreement with."

Tom Hauge, director of the Department of Natural Resources bureau of wildlife management, said: "We're hoping that the committee will not take the full 10 days. We certainly would like to have the rule go forward and go ahead with the experiment."
Hauge continued: "We appreciate the action that the JCRAR took in listening to the concerns of the deer hunting community and allowing the opportunity for a one-year experiment to take place."

Zone T hunts are held in deer management units where traditional hunting does not bring the deer population within 20% of DNR goals. Many bow hunters oppose October Zone T hunts because they can interfere with the rut, or whitetail deer breeding season, when mature bucks are vulnerable.

Other changes in the rules package include:

• Unlimited antlerless tags would be available in herd control deer management units, the Zone T and Earn-A-Buck units. The first antlerless tag would be free with the purchase of a gun or archery license. Additional tags would be available for a $2 handling fee.
• The Hunter's Choice program would be replaced by the sale of bonus antlerless tags valid for specific deer management units not designated as herd control units at a cost of $12 for state residents and $20 for non-residents.
• A two-day either-sex youth gun deer hunt, held Oct. 7-8, would replace the current one-day antlerless-only youth hunt Oct. 28.
• The close of the late archery season would be moved to the Saturday nearest Jan. 6 (Jan. 7 this year, instead of Jan. 3) to ensure hunting during the New Year's holiday.
• Archery licenses would come with two tags valid statewide, one for a buck and one for an antlerless deer, plus another tag good for an antlerless deer in herd control units. Currently, they get one either-sex tag, plus the antlerless tag for herd control units.

"We have decided that we need to print and mail an additional antlerless tag valid statewide to those bowhunters who purchase their license prior to the final review by the JCRAR," said Keith Warnke, big game specialist with the DNR. The cost is estimated at $38,000 to $53,000, he said.

The rules package was forged by the DNR, the Conservation Congress, hunting groups and others at meetings last summer after many hunters expressed dissatisfaction with Zone T and Earn-A-Buck hunts in 2004.
Earn-A-Buck - which requires hunters to shoot an antlerless deer before they can shoot a buck - will remain in place under the rules package. The board has approved Earn-A-Buck for 21 deer management units across the state this year.
"We were well aware when we started discussions that there would still be some Earn-A-Buck," Oestreicher said of the hunting groups. "It just simply was not possible for the department to totally dismiss it."
Under the trail, October Zone T hunts would resume if hunters failed to register 1.4 antlerless deer for each buck killed in herd control units in 2006, and the ratio must climb to 2-to-1 by the end of the two-year trial.
Oestreicher believes those ratios can be met.
"We're anticipating that with the free tags that are being given out to hunters that we'll make up the antlerless harvest loss from the October hunt," he said.

In other action, the board approved a deer hunting rules package for 2006 in the state's chronic wasting disease zones that, among other things, establishes either-sex deer hunting in the zones instead of Earn-A-Buck.

In response to hunters concerns, the board also:

• Moved a four-day gun hunt in the Herd Reduction Zone a week earlier, from Oct. 26-29 to Oct. 19-22.
• Moved a nine-day gun hunt in the Disease Eradication Zone a week earlier, from Oct. 21-29 to Oct.14-22.
"It was an attempt by the board to address some of the concerns of the archery community that the later dates of the October hunts interfered with the rut and diminished the quality of their hunt," Hauge said of the changes.

This is finally a decent compromise for hunters. Though EAB still exists in some units, the October t-zone is done away with.

Had the DNR simply listened to bowhunters for the past several years and urged the move of t-zones back to mid-October and not insisted on doing it during the rut, there would not have been as much controversy.

Still, this isn't a bad move. Now we will see if the DNR is serious about being objective here, or if they are just sputtering out more nonsense like they did in Deer 2000 when they "agreed" to an outside audit of population numbers. And one test will be:

Let's see: I hunt in unit 61. Last year, the ratio of antlerless to antlered deer harvested was about 1.61 to 1. Yet before this compromise started to take hold, we were told that we would have t-zone. Hmmmmmm?! So should that ratio hold this year, and get to 2:1 by 2007, the DNR should keep their bargain, right? If not, we'll know....

Nice a longer bow season! Ya gotta love that! Even though its only 4 additional days I'll take anything I can get! Those extra days will be a joy as I am always on Vacation the first 2 weeks of Jan.!!!!!!!!!!!

It'l work for me.

The best thing is the rut gets left alone. The biggest gripe I had was having to bowhunt in blaze orange and having guys with guns spooking nearby deer. I'm cautiously hopeful that the the DNR is finally starting to listen to hunters.

id rather have the tzones before bowhunting even starts. I see the most buck activity during mid october.