Soup du Jour

I recently moved to WI from MI and I feel like a kid in a candy store. The deer hunting here is 10 fold the deer hunting back in MI in my opinion. Any time you go out in the woods and you have a chance to see and or harvest a trophy size buck, it doesn't get any better than that.

I have no problem shooting a doe to earn my buck tag. I think it is a win win for everyone. If I don't fill my buck tag this year it will roll over to next year. Even if it doesn't roll over to the following year I still have meat in my freezer and had a chance to tag a world class animal.

Just look at the number of huge deer that have been shot this season. A lot of things / factors are working for deer to get that size in this state. I believe EAB is one of the major factors on why WI has the quality of bucks they do.

Whatever you believe in we should all be happy to have the ability to harvest such a great animal. Please keep that in mind when you sitting in your stand pondering the EAB debate.

Soup

1shotkill1993

The "Earn-A-Buck" program is in effect in the counties I hunt in Virginia. Except here, we can kill 1 antlered deer before an antlerless. Then we have to shoot an antlerless deer in order to kill another antlered.

I don't find it to be a problem asI usually kill a doe anyways. It should reallytake the population under control.

Canned Heat

Being part of this equation over the years here in WI....you either need to get your butt out and get a doe to get your buck, or move on to hunt an area that isn'tcarrying EAB status. If more guys took does and didn't hold out for the monster buck that seldom shows up, we wouldn't have this problem...or nearly as much of it.

BuildFlyCrash

Here's another small problem...Non-resident hunters. If I come up there and got five days to hunt It could take 1/2 or all my days to kill and check in a doe before I could kill a buck. Maybe I'll spend my $$$ in another state???

Over all I think EAB is a great idea but nothing works for everyone.

Handles

Buildflycrash,
You don't have to register the doe, she just has to be dead and tagged before you shoot a buck. You can take them in and register them at the same time. However... Wisconsin has plenty of hunters, if it keeps out a few FIBs, I don't mind a bit

hurley0816

meat in the freezer is just that, meat in the freezer. i would love to take a trophy buck, but ill take a few doe while I wait.

teedub31

You grossly misinterpreted what I said and claimed that I did not want to be part of the solution. All I said was that if the states were truley sincere about herd management and wanting to encourage the taking of does then they should make antlerless tags free. In Indiana, it will cost me about $100 to take a doe so that I can Earn a Buck. Then the Buck will cost me another $100 dollars. All of this as a Resident. A single doe tag is $24 + processing the meat. Subsequent doe tags are $15.00 + meat processing. (Not everyone has the time or ability to do their own butchering). A nonresident has to pay almost $200 for a doe license in order to buy a buck tag for $200. This is just a revenue gnerator for the state nothing more.

teedub31

What do you call the guy that just sits in a stand waiting for a doe to walk by. Where I hunt I could shoot a doe on 80% of trips to stand. Not much hunting or skill in that. Just wait for them to show up and pull the trigger.

I can only do justice to eating 1 deer per year. I enjoy hunting and out smarting bucks, not sitting and shooting a passing doe. If at the end of the season I have yet to get my antlered deer I will take a doe to have my 1 deer in the freezer. I just ain't gonna shoot the 1st doe I see for herd management and end my season because my freezer quota is full. And were I am from, people don't want a deer to process, so I can't give it away. They only want it if you pay to process it. Now who is selfish.

Lanse couche couche

Of course you do realize that if more people shot does, then there would be fewer of them and they would be much more skittish, which would then make hunting them more of a challenge.Just something to think about.

lucky_shot

i wish arkansas would do the eab program. they have steped up in the last few years tobetter the qualityof thebucks by the antler restrictions and this year they were very generous with doe tags. from december 26-28 you won't even need a doe tag if you haven't already shot one.

there are just too many does around here... i have not seen any bucks fighting inorder to mate, they aren'teven getting out and about to find a mate. with the massive quanity of acorns and does the bucks are hiding out!

one thing i don't understand about the antler restriction is ifa spikebuck is 2" or lesshe is legal, other wise 3 points on one side is legal.


EDIT: the only down fall is when you shoot a doe that is one less reason for that buck to get caught in your cross hairs