Zrabfan26

I've been giving some thought to our current late doe season with rifles. I think the season is way to late. With discussions on bucks and deer ratios and numbers, I was curious to hear what other fellow hunters think of this late season. The big question is for how many people think that some mature buck get taken by accident. Since bucks can lose their horns already, is it fair that we still hunt doe? Bucks at a distance with no horns could easily be shot for a mature doe. With the season starting in September, I think ending it at the end of December is plenty. This could potentially save a few bucks. What does everyone else think?

bluebird2

I read a PGN article from the 80s , when the doe season was 2 or 3 days after buck season and they said that 2-3% of the antlerless harvest were adult bucks that had lost their racks. With ARs ,more buck survive the combined season I wouldn't be surprised if rate had increased to around 5%.

Gunplummer

Two years ago I shot a big bodied buck in unit 5-C that had shed already. Better a buck than a doe.
Anyway, after a long drag up and across a steep hill, I get it home and had to throw it out. I noticed a small hole through the belly really low, and some jelled blood in the body cavity, but no organs hit. It was really thinned out, but I thought it was from the rut. Looked O.K. when skinned. I cut in to the bone and it was poisoned. Don't know if it was from the hole or hit by a car weeks before or what. Point is, in that area, with traffic, poaching, hunters that are lousy shots, bow season, and everything else that causes bucks to wander off and die in the brush, a few shot for doe is not even relevant. I remember back in the 3 day doe season when a lot of buck were shot some years on the mountain I hunt. It usually was when we had brutally cold weather for a while. We figured the antlers kind of froze off. The biologists said no, but then they also said deer can't see colors.

Champlain Islander

Here in Vermont the F&W dept put out feelers to initiate a 4 day early ML season in late Oct to only fill doe tags. Presently the doe are harvested by lottery in the 9 day ML season which falls in early Dec after the does have been bread. The feeling by many is why let them eat the forage which goes to waste if they are only going to be killed later. Many states use that method to cull the does and it looked like Vt was going to get modern with their thinking. The overall goal was to not remove more does but to take them earlier. The new lib governor didn't like the sounds of that and between he and his followers shot it down in the public hearings portion of the study.

jicand

Amen, I stopped hunting for many years and finally took up bow this year because I can't stand sitting out in the cold for doe season. My dad never took me out for anything but doe season, so that's all I ever knew to hunt. 20 years ago when I started going into the woods with my dad, it was always snow covered ground at at the most 15 degrees outside.

Zrabfan26

Yeah who knows how many get killed this way, its just a thought. I recall shooting a buck this way years ago in rifle when the seasons were split. Unvisible untill I walked up to gut it. Saw the one side busted about a 1/2 inch and the other side was green puss where horn should have been. It sounds like some get shot back in December already but January could have a lot more cases.

Valentine

No way for perfection in a state that had one million hunters, and has some 700,000 plus now.

But hunters got a chance for buck season, the last fifty years. For some, that's perfection enough.