tatonka

I guess I just need to vent a little... In December I wrote a letter to our F&G dept. about the hunting pressure on whitetails in our area... The state sells unlimited "Over the Counter" tags for antlerless whitetails in our region. Our Region (region 6) is very large...probably as large as all of the New England states combined if not larger. When it comes to managing the deer, its "One size fits all"... While there may be high numbers of deer in one part of the region, in others there are very few. My letter to the F&G proposed doing away with unlimited tags in the region and going to a specific number for each district in the region based on the population. So, what did the F&G dept. so? They went from 1 unlimited tag per hunter to 4 unlimited antlerless tags!!!! It's absolutely nuts and I'm so ticked off I could scream. Hunters flock here from other parts of Montana as well as from out of state. Whitetails have been literally wiped out in many places I've hunted over the past 40 years, yet the F&G's greed has overridden the fact... All they seem to want is the money... OK.. I'm done. thanks for listening..

SportsmanNH

A legitimate rant Tatonka ! They did the same thing to us in Maine last year. Same idea anyway . They TRIPLED the amount of Any Deer Permits with the heard actually becoming less and less over the last 15 years ! They claim there is a TON of deer out there and need to lower the cases of Lyme Disease . Evidently F+G haven't walked out in the woods in a few years !

Rob in VT

That’s a shame Tatonka. I looked into whitetail hunting south east of Billings this year. The outfitter decided to stop deer hunts for a few years as the numbers were way down. Kudos to him for seeing the big picture. Tons of whitetails between Sheridan and Kaycee, so I am concentrating on that area. Hardest part is access as there is lots of large private ranches.

Best of Luck this year.

Bocajnala

There was a several year period in Pennsylvania where our camp would buy as many antlerless tags as we could get and "burn them".

Our local population rebounded over several years. At the time we were running 15-20 guys and primarily hunting on about 1,000 acres of farm land that was private, but was open to hunting and they gave permission to whoever.

Those properties are leased out now unfortunately. But just because the state issues tags doesn't mean they have to be used. Good luck convincing others to go that route though.

-Jake

hardcastonly

there must be a balance between game numbers and quality, no one wants to hunt where there's almost no decent game populations,
and no one wants to hunt where theres almost zero chance of spotting anything with legal horns,
while I have zero issues with having a 4 point minimum, for a deer/elk to be legal, and limited deer/elk tags,
there should be both over the counter and mail in licenses available, and game departments should strive for a health herd,
and reasonably high populations consistent with what the area can easily support.
MANY WESTERN STATES , have come to VEIW SELLING DEER AND ELK TAGS, AS BASICALLY FREE MONEY
points systems and lotterys make planning a hunt much more difficult, Its obvious that some states are deliberately trying to make hunting both difficult and financially prohibitive, for example calif. makes it impossible draw a tag to hunt the same area in two consecutive years.
and several have raised out of state tag prices to the point its no longer financial possible or justifiable to hunt in those states.
I know I spend several out of state trips having never once seeing a trophy or in some cases just legal bull/buck in two weeks of hard hunting.
when I started hunting out of stated a weeks pay covered the cost of both a deer and elk tag, now its over three and a half weeks pay, just for the tags
keep in mind other expenses have also increased dramatically , I know I just can no longer spend a months salary, to spend 2 weeks hunting out of state

Oldtimr

Waste of time buying and burning tags. If the harvest is lower than they wanted it they will and did just raise the number of license the following year. As for me, many places where hunters were doing that needed more deer killed. I will trust the professionals before I trusting the knowledge of hunters who wanted too many deer. They are what got us in PA to the point of herd reduction in the first place by lobbying the general assembly not to allow the PGC to issue enough doe licenses.

bronko22000

I disagree with you in part on this Oldtimr. While I agree there were too many deer in certain areas (BTW I'm glad they went to WMUs instead of countys for issuing anterless tags) I don't agree on the way the PGC went about it. Rather than gradually increasing the number of tags over years and seeing the results they went and started issuing massive increases in tags and they got what they wanted and a lot more. The deer herd in a lot of areas were devastated. The results in the areas I hunt are easily visible. Being retired I hunt almost every day during the archery season, muzzleloader (both seasons) and rifle season except during rainy weather or when I need a rest and last year I only saw a grand total of 2 deer one being a spike buck that was not legal. I hunt exclusively public land with no agriculture. The first time in about 30 years that I got skunked.
This has resulted in a lot of discouraged hunters and a major drop in license sales. Last year, except for my hunting buddy, I didn't see another hunter during the entire archery season.
One thing I do like that the PGC did was issue a point restriction on buck. Since that came into effect I've shot more bigger buck than I've ever seen here in PA.