N. WI - Bucks Only This Year
 

In 19 counties it will be bucks-only this year. I know my county is one of them since we had nearly the worst winter severity index. I think it is a good decision - the herd is pretty small. http://www.startribune.com/sports/blogs/260989561.html

Yep... That was the right decision. Going back to one buck in the cwd area and no free doe tags was a good move too. I watched my area in S.E. Wisconsin get hurt bad by all the guys shooting multiple bucks and every doe... The whole state should be no does for a year.

I can't imagine more than one buck. Been hunting PA since 1982 and it's always been one buck. Doe tags were always lottery.

I'm with you on this!

it was the right decision

I agree that those were both good decisions (grew up in northern Wisconsin back in the day when every year was one buck limit and 4-person party tag only for does). But wasn't the object in the CWD zones to dramatically reduce the population? And now they decided to try and get it back up? Isn't this inconsistent? I guess I'm asking what the point is in trying to restore the CWD zones after spending years treating it as a free-fire zone.

I grew up hunting CO and we have been limited to a single deer per season with a few exceptions in the last 25-30 years. We have to apply for a deer tag (they are all on quota) in Apr and have to decide if we want a buck or a doe at that time. If you get a tag it is for a single deer. There are some bonus type tags but again, they are all limited. The normal annual bag limit for deer is one.

It wasn't until I started hunting whitetails after entering the Navy that I was ever allowed to take more than one deer a season. I almost didn't know how to act the first time I actually took two in one hunt. Many Eastern and Southern hunters don't know how good they have since they can take more than one a season.

A lot of people "think" our DNR is run by sound decisions by wildlife managers, but thats not true... Its really run by politicians. During Wisconsin's war on whitetails (cwd) We had a Liberal Democrat in office named Doyle who was working with auto insurance companies to lower the deer population. When hunters would not go along with the plan the disease was used to force it upon them. There were people in the WDNR who were fired for speaking up... And the people Doyle put in charge of making those decisions were not biologists, but instead he put his lawyer in as the head of the DNR and hired other friends to force his rule... Now that we finally got a conservative in office ( Scott Walker ) who is also a hunter and avid outdoorsman, he is leading the change to manage the herd on sound advice from biologists and wildlife experts...
Just yesterday the new Biologist for Jefferson county met with me to look at some of the public land I am very familar with and discuss deer habitat improvement...They would not give a guy like me the time of day when Doyle was in office

Certainly was a shift in management when Doyle got in, which was about the time of CWD. But last year and the 2 years prior, I thought there were still too many antlerless tags given up north. And 3 years ago they were practically giving them away free in our zone in unlimited numbers ($2 each as I remember). Perhaps it has just taken a few years to get this straightened out. I know last year in the unit next to us there were no bonus tags at all in response to hunter feedback and deer numbers. Also, last year, the DNR took hunter feedback seriously, as you mentioned. I went back and forth on emails with the state biologist.

Looking forward to some decent numbers again.

Everything in Government moves slow... Hopefully we can keep it heading in the correct direction.