Deer hunter satisfaction survey
#13

Pa
Turkey and Bear gets a 3= Good, very satisfied with, only very minor or no changes necessary, hunting very good.
Management of every other game animal gets a 1= poor system needs overhauled hunting should be better.
Being that my passion is for whitetails and upland game I am very dissatisfied.
Turkey and Bear gets a 3= Good, very satisfied with, only very minor or no changes necessary, hunting very good.
Management of every other game animal gets a 1= poor system needs overhauled hunting should be better.
Being that my passion is for whitetails and upland game I am very dissatisfied.
#15
Fork Horn
Join Date: Oct 2007
Posts: 144

1 in Tn
We used to have enough deer that you would see 3 or 4 a day if you spent the time in the woods but now you might go days before you see one. The DNR opened a 3 does a day every day of season. Our season all together runs from Sep-Jan with rifle season from Nov-mid Jan and it sucks! The out of staters and people that doesn't live anywhere near here thought it was a shooting gallery when it started. They shot everything with hair on it. They would shoot them and throw the whole deer out on the side of the road. The local paper had a picture of about 20 deer piled up on the side of the road and the only thing missing was the horns on the bucks. We KNOW who did it but couldn't prove it. Some guys from Knoxville leased a big spot of land beside mine and they killed everything that moved. We drive by there camp going in to hunt the evening and saw a big 4 wheeler trailer loaded over with deer. The next morning I went to pick up my buddy and there was a huge pile of deer laying at the rarely used end of the road that wasn't there the night before when we came home. Drove back by the camp and there sat an empty trailer with no full coolers, hides, nothing. They only leased it that year but you still do good to see 1 deer all weekend out there where you used to see 6 or 8 a day. I won't even hunt it this year and hopefully they will come back. The DNR still says we have too many deer. I don't know how my hunting buddies and I hunt alot and last year we all went about 6 whole days as a group without seeing anything. I wish they would go back to Buck only and then give out 3-4 doe tags the last half of season like they used to when we had a few deer. Or atleast stop giving the people that doesn't live in our unit all the doe tags so the slaughter will slow down. If you have to hunt there every year you care alittle more about the deer pop. than the guy who just come in for a 5 day hunt and shoots everything they see. They can pick a different area next year so it doesn't matter to them.
Sorry about that. Got alittle pi$$ed off just thinking about it.
We used to have enough deer that you would see 3 or 4 a day if you spent the time in the woods but now you might go days before you see one. The DNR opened a 3 does a day every day of season. Our season all together runs from Sep-Jan with rifle season from Nov-mid Jan and it sucks! The out of staters and people that doesn't live anywhere near here thought it was a shooting gallery when it started. They shot everything with hair on it. They would shoot them and throw the whole deer out on the side of the road. The local paper had a picture of about 20 deer piled up on the side of the road and the only thing missing was the horns on the bucks. We KNOW who did it but couldn't prove it. Some guys from Knoxville leased a big spot of land beside mine and they killed everything that moved. We drive by there camp going in to hunt the evening and saw a big 4 wheeler trailer loaded over with deer. The next morning I went to pick up my buddy and there was a huge pile of deer laying at the rarely used end of the road that wasn't there the night before when we came home. Drove back by the camp and there sat an empty trailer with no full coolers, hides, nothing. They only leased it that year but you still do good to see 1 deer all weekend out there where you used to see 6 or 8 a day. I won't even hunt it this year and hopefully they will come back. The DNR still says we have too many deer. I don't know how my hunting buddies and I hunt alot and last year we all went about 6 whole days as a group without seeing anything. I wish they would go back to Buck only and then give out 3-4 doe tags the last half of season like they used to when we had a few deer. Or atleast stop giving the people that doesn't live in our unit all the doe tags so the slaughter will slow down. If you have to hunt there every year you care alittle more about the deer pop. than the guy who just come in for a 5 day hunt and shoots everything they see. They can pick a different area next year so it doesn't matter to them.
Sorry about that. Got alittle pi$$ed off just thinking about it.

#16
Boone & Crockett
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Ponce de Leon Florida USA
Posts: 10,079

I've thought for several years that Alabama needed to have a two week doe only season the first two weeks of Dec to try and get the population down. Nobody (or not many hunters) wants to shoot a doe, hoping that a nice buck is going to walk out later.
#17

I would give Texas a 2.5. Not a lot I would do to change things, but they end up looking better than they really are simply because 99% of the hunting is done on private land the individual private land owners end up managing their wildlife more than the state does. Of course the state has set things up well to allow that.
#18

Yeah I'm with npaden. Texas isn't bad enough that it deserves a 2 or quite good enough for a 3. Where I'm at it's mostly private land so you pick and choose your own management system. Texas does do a good job though of figuring the amount of deer that can be shot per county. And doesn't hold it to the same standard all over the state. But I know that the public land around here could use some work for the hunting aspect as it is more of an ATV park. (although I can't complain to much cause that is where I go to ride.) I have seen deer out there when riding, but not enough deer for the amount of hunters that go in their every deer season. Although for those willing to get to the places fourwheelers cant I'm sure there is some good deer hunting.
#19
Spike
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: grand rapids, MI
Posts: 64

michigan gets a 1, terrible management of one of the best herds int the country, could be so much better, they should switch to a 1 buck rule, put cross bows in there own season and stop cutting funding in the DNR so they can enforce some laws. I would be in favor of altogether stopping the harvest of bucks for a couple of years in order to get the doe harvest in check, that way we wouldnt need a early doe season ( in this state that means does and any buck just to big to pass up in september)
#20

Pa
Turkey and Bear gets a 3= Good, very satisfied with, only very minor or no changes necessary, hunting very good.
Management of every other game animal gets a 1= poor system needs overhauled hunting should be better.
Being that my passion is for whitetails and upland game I am very dissatisfied.
Turkey and Bear gets a 3= Good, very satisfied with, only very minor or no changes necessary, hunting very good.
Management of every other game animal gets a 1= poor system needs overhauled hunting should be better.
Being that my passion is for whitetails and upland game I am very dissatisfied.