paulywog

Areas of Wisconsin restated the earn a buck program, what's your opinion on it, good or bad?

Personally I think it's going to work out well, the area I hunt is crawling with does and something had to be done. I hunt unit 62b. Let me know your feelings.


Good Luck Hunting!

Drop-Tine

Paulywog,
Actually, I like the whole earn-a-buck program, I think its an excellent tool to keep the doe herd in check and at the same time, protects the bucks. One of the real reasons there aren't more trophy deer in the state is because the bucks are already dead when they're 1 1/2 and 2 1/2 years old. We need to let them Grow! I think Earn a buck will help that a bit. Thanks

bnhcomputing

I hunt 59D, an earn-a-buck unit. Where I hunt, we are lucky to see five or six deer the entire year. All the deer are on the other side of the road in the corn and bean fields or the golf course. They have cover, water, food, and no hunting pressure. On any given day, we can count 50+ deer easily. Now the DNR says that this area has too many deer. They are correct, but the deer run to the golf course or local farmers refuge and are not hunted or pressured.

If the goal of the DNR is to bring population down, and I agree the population is to high, then they need to implement a deer tax. There aren’t any deer on my side of the road, so I would pay little to no tax. The farmer or the golf course on the other side, that doesn’t hunt or chase the deer, should get a huge tax bill, several hundred dollars per deer that can be seen by the DNR. In this way, these lands will be opened, or hunted giving the rest of us a chance. It would also bring the population in check extremely quickly and keep it there because nobody likes additional taxes. Also consider the revenue possibility for the DNR.

Anyway, until we restructure the DMU’s or implement a deer tax, we will have pockets with high deer populations and low hunter pressure that will continue to make hunting more difficult for the average Joe.

DeerSlayer83

I personally like the earn-a-buck idea...I hunt in 63a...just south of shawano outside a small town called Navarino....Most of the deer I have chances to harvest are does anyways...In my 9 years of deer hunting (im 21) I have only took two bucks..A Nice 8 pointer and a 3 pointer...All the rest have been does...Odds are I would shoot a doe before a buck anyways since Im not a trophy hunter...I hunt for the meat....Best of luck to you all on the upcoming T-zone at the end of the month

1dahunter

I am all for the Earn a buck, The problem I have is the land owner who chooses not to open his land to hunting goes to the public hunting areas and hunts there. I feel as a non land owner that land owners who refuse to open there land to hunting should not be allowed to use public lands for any reasons. 90% of the deer population are on lands that are posted and see no hunting pressure. Until something is done about the private lands deer population and control is all but impossible.

TJD

EAB stinks and is unnecessary for the most part. It creates a lot of ill will among hunters, who the DNR says are their primary deer management tool. In addition, the DNR has never really studied in any detail how many nubbins get shot under this program. I would guess it is fairly high, especially during gun season.

I hunt unit 61 and the problem there is not the population being too high, it is the DNR deciding to reduce the overwinter population targets. Simply by deciding that the target population needs to be lower, you can have a unit that was fine one year and is now suddenly "overpopulated" the next. Crop damage in our unit is down, so where are all of these deer supposedly eating?

It's a crappy program, and hopefully there will be some political pressure brought to bear on these desk bound bureaucrats to end this nonsense.

1sagittarius

Aww common TJD, you know better than that!

WI Buck Fawn Harvest Study

Between 1964 and 2000 the WDNR tooth aged 257,920 antlerless deer at registration stations and found buck fawn averaged 21.6% of the antlerless harvest.

Even if each doe averaged one fawn, and fawns went 50/50 bucks to does, buck fawns would only comprise 25% of the antlerless deer. We all would like less buck fawns shot, but lowering the population is a priority. It would be great if hunters could ID size and the nubs before they shot, but that appears to not be the case.

TJD

My bigger issue is the overwinter targets, and the manipulation of these numbers by the DNR in order to "make the case" that a unit is "overpopulated.

But I take little comfort in the numbers the DNR has trotted out for years.

Actually, I am referring to how many buck fawns get dropped due to EAB. Since now a hunter is required to kill an antlerless deer before having a legal chance at a buck, what do you think will happen? For example, let's say a hunter just saw a 12-pt walk by 10 yards away and had no chance at a doe prior to that. Next thing that walks by is a 65 lb. nubbin.

What do you think is going to happen?

Many hunters aren't fortunate enough to have all kinds of time off with which to go hunting. If you have a hunter who is only gun hunting this year, how patient do you think they will be when seeing anything that doesn't have horns?

Second, I take little comfort in numbers that indicate that basically half of the fawns shot are bucks. These buck fawns are subsequent years "trophy" bucks, and certainly aren't going to add to any supposed population problems.

OK, then why not give out two or three buck tags as well?

deadshot

i wish that the dnr here in mich would put the earn a buck program in effect in at least some of the counties here in mich, our deer herd is so far out of whack its not funny and then they only allow does tags in certain counties on public land. the county i hunt is a major problem as far as buck to doe ratio's but as usual the dnr wont listen to the hunters

1sagittarius

Well, we are about to find out "how many buck fawns get dropped due to EAB." And there is the new added check box for buck fawns on the deer registration stubs this year. Lots more data should be available at the end of the year, lets just hope it is accurate.

I am not registering deer this year, been doing it for the last 10. Taking my son out gun deer for the first time, in a EAB unit. I don't see shooting a antlerless first, or letting a buck walk, as problem for him. He understands deer management, the rules, and does not think it's a big deal. JMHO