WVHunter129

lost horn, I honestly believe it was mismanagement on the part of the WV DNR, by having about 3 years of liberal doe seasons. Last year I know that in every county that had a doe season you could take up to 4 does. Now this has been going on for 3 years.

The DNR tries to say it is due to poor mass production, hard winters, etc...NAH....mismanagement.

huntinwv

hunter129 said it best.

Now they want to open gun season in the bow-only counties...[:@]

Rem1100

That has not been proven as fact. I believe in my states' DNR, to whats' BEST FOR THE GAME...not the hunters. THAT'S their jobs,1st and foremost.... there STILL are areas of too many does within this state...
I already know your opinion.. now you know mine.

WVHunter129

Rem1100, I do agree with you that there are areas with over population of deer.

What I refer to as mismanagement by the WV DNR is that instead of increasing the doe tags in those counties effected by over population, the DNR chose to increase the doe tags in all counties open to doe hunting. I don't believe that the DNR had the numbers or evidence of an increased population statewide.

Here in Fayette Co, I don't think we were anywhere close to an over population of deer. I have hunted here in Fayette Co for over 20 years and have not see a problem with deer here as I have heard and read about in the northeastern panhandle.

If you notice in the regs for this year the 21 counties that the DNR said last year were over populated is still over populated and the tag limit is 4 does for this year, but here in Fayette, Nicholas and most of Greenbrier counties they have closed doe season. The DNR now see the mistake they made last year, and the year before and the year before that!

tanzian

I gotta agree with WVhunter129 assesment of the situation. In SOME counties, the liberal does season went too far. Many areas do not need unlimited does tags. Some areas, however, still need to have the heard reduced further. The unfortunate fact of the matter is that the areas that are over populated, in general, have problems with access to areas to hunt to be effective. If vast tracts are closed to hunting, a major problem here in the eastern panhandle, you can't effectivly manage the herd. You can wipe the deer out year after year on land the is open to hunting, only to have the areas closed to it continue to over populate the rest of the area. Deer have great survival instincts and they will run to the areas that are not hunted the moment the shooting starts.

I believe doe tags, when issued, should be specific for areas of counties. We need to manage the heard or a more localized scale. We also need to open up more areas to hunting, even if it is bow only, to have any lasting effect on the herd.

Kinda ironic that the county can tell me I can't hunt my private land on Sunday but they cant tell someone else to open up for hutning to help reduce the herd.

I understand your point of view REM1100, but you cant make a blanket policy for the states herds,state wide.It must be done on a more localized level and under strict intense management. You cant just willy nilly issue heaps of tags. It will and has in some areas wipe the heard totally out. Hence the reason for the dramatic drop in buck harvest numbers.

Pro-Line

Tan hit it on the head. Some states have laws that are confusing for a reason. Some areas have more deer.

WV needs to micro-manage their herd. In Braxton, where I own a farm, the deer population WAS out of control. About 2 years ago, it was perfect. We had 5 hunters last year on 400 acres, and we had 2 hunters see LESS THAN 20 deer in 4 1/2 days of hunting. One guy had 7 does run by on Monday, and jumped 5 in the same place on Tuesday...and he saw one more deer (a fawn) on Thursday morning.

We're not morons...we've all been hunting the same land for 15yrs minimum. There are just less deer, and also less hunters to move the deer in our area.

We own 400 and can hunt the surrounding farms (probably 1,000) and we rarely see other hunters. In the early 90's, when we saw 50 deer/day, we saw hunters also. If we had more hunters, we'd obviously see more deer....but there are also a lot less deer to see.

Our trails aren't beat down, and we have a large non-hunted feeder in our yard that has about 6 resident deer that frequent it. Used to be that we'd have 20 deer a night at that same feeder.

Rem1100

whos' gonna monitor this? games wardens? at 1 per county? get real... leave it to the hunters(as a whole)and they'll kill EVERYTHING they see.. you know it and I know it. the DNRdoes the best it can within the legislative guidlines set forth by the State. mistakes ARE made, but not nearly as many as HUNTERS make, as far as detriment to the herd!! Like some one stated, hunting is going the way of other sports, less attractive to the new generation... that's gonna be bad for our sport anyway,but to leave management to the locals would be a disaster in most parts of the state...I can see the "Good Ole Boy" management practices now....

hillbillyhunter1

I think that many hunters may be a little more conservation minded than what you give them credit for Rem1100, but if the law allows them to take "x" number of deer, then you can't fault them for it. after all, the state most know what's right for the herd, right?

I also think that although Tanzian stated , which I agree with, he did not mean that the actual management should be turned over to the "locals". I believe he meant that the state should take a look at each individual county (or even parts of a county) on a case by case basis and then institute policies for that specific area based upon the specific needs of that area to insure a healthy herd statewide. While the monitoring of the local herd could be assisted by the game warden thru surveys, # of roadkills, etc, ultimately the responsibility lies at the recommendations made by the state and federal biologists. Even if the regulations become more complicated "you can kill two deer here, one there, and none over there", I think most hunters will be able to understand it. It's not that hard. Read the regs out here (MT).They arecomplicated and lengthy and extremely area specific, but after you fool around w/ them for a while, it's not that bad and it's worth it for the quality of the herds they help foster.

I think that WV just has to take their management to the next level and base it on science and in cooperation with all those that care about the health of the animal populations.

btw--someone mentioned that they want to open gun season in the bow-only counties--surely not- that would be idiotic. Does anyone know anything about this?

WVHunter129

hillbillyhunter1, last year at my deer camp in Greenbrier Co. I ran into a guy camped next to us from one of those counties and he told me that a Conservation Officer told him that if the hunters in those counties didn't start taking does during archery season that there was a good possibility that a gun season was in the future.

tanzian

You missed the point. I didnt mean leave it to hunters to manage the heard. Manage it on a local level meaning that counties should be divided in areas and the number of tags sold to be based on data from that LOCAL area.

The game wardens in WV are a joke for the most part just because of thier lack of numbers. I have suggested over and over ad nausem to the WV DNR to start a deputy game warden program similar to what Pennsylvania uses but to no avail. Due to the lack of available enforcment is why poaching is so rampant in many areas. The big "joke" around here is that buck season opens the 4th of July. Some joke , huh? We find headless deer every year on my and my neighborsland. One of these days they are going to find a headless poacher! I know fully 50% of our preseason bucks are poached in my area.

And to bring up the future of our sport.... If we dont manage the deer properly on a more localized level to have a stable heard, there will be no deer to hunt. Talk about a detriment to the sport. How many nubies are going to go into the woods an wait and wait for several seasons til they can bag thier first deer....Id venture to say not many at all!

Bottom line is this... If they hadnt over issued tags in so many areas then why are they closing the doe season all together in some counties? Simple... they issued too many tags and the numbers of does dropped below an acceptable stable level to allow season to season stock number to be stable. Plainly put..WV DNR SCREWED UP BIG!