Fishbonker
Life Member
Some highlights from the State of the Deer Herd Address delivered by Tom Litchfield, Iowa Deer Biologist at the IBA Annual meeting on Saturday.
2010/2011 harvest:
Licenses sold: 394,298
Total Reported Kill: 127,094 (est. 84.5% compliance with reporting. Est. 150,500 deer killed)
Antlered Bucks: 46,934
Button Bucks: 13,150
Shed Bucks: 1,815
Does: 65,195
% of all kills that were does: 51%
Success rate for all methods of take: 32%
Harvest for 2010/2011 was 7% lower than 2009/2010 (9,410 fewer deer).
There were 11,249 fewer licenses issued in 2010/2011 than 2009/2010. 8,862 fewer antlerless, 2,387 fewer either sex. Paid licenses decreased by 10,441 and landowner/tenant licenses dropped by 808.
Proposed changes for 2011: 4 counties will be dropped from the late antlerless season and the season will be shorter, quotas will be decreased in several counties, 18 counties will be dropped from the November antlerless season. Early muzzle loader hunters will not be able to purchase an antlerless tag for either shotgun season.
The report may be somewhere on the DNR website. It is much more detailed in numbers and reasoning than I transcribed.
We were given the opportunity to ask questions about anything DNR related.
Question: How many antlerless only NR shotgun tags are available very year? Answer: 4,000 (total 10,000 NR tags available).
Question: How many NR antlerless shotgun tags went unsold this year? Answer, 2,000.
Question: There was a rumor floating around that bow hunters were not going to be able to harvest more than 1 bird/season much like gun hunters. Answer: Not true.
Question: Where in the rule making process is the wounded game tracking with a dog? They will be proposed soon and will be open for public comment. The rules may be in place this fall.
Those are the ones I remember, probably because I asked them. Anyway, the report is probably available on line, but I have my copy so I’m not gonna try to find it. Guess I’m just lazy that way.
2010/2011 harvest:
Licenses sold: 394,298
Total Reported Kill: 127,094 (est. 84.5% compliance with reporting. Est. 150,500 deer killed)
Antlered Bucks: 46,934
Button Bucks: 13,150
Shed Bucks: 1,815
Does: 65,195
% of all kills that were does: 51%
Success rate for all methods of take: 32%
Harvest for 2010/2011 was 7% lower than 2009/2010 (9,410 fewer deer).
There were 11,249 fewer licenses issued in 2010/2011 than 2009/2010. 8,862 fewer antlerless, 2,387 fewer either sex. Paid licenses decreased by 10,441 and landowner/tenant licenses dropped by 808.
Proposed changes for 2011: 4 counties will be dropped from the late antlerless season and the season will be shorter, quotas will be decreased in several counties, 18 counties will be dropped from the November antlerless season. Early muzzle loader hunters will not be able to purchase an antlerless tag for either shotgun season.
The report may be somewhere on the DNR website. It is much more detailed in numbers and reasoning than I transcribed.
We were given the opportunity to ask questions about anything DNR related.
Question: How many antlerless only NR shotgun tags are available very year? Answer: 4,000 (total 10,000 NR tags available).
Question: How many NR antlerless shotgun tags went unsold this year? Answer, 2,000.
Question: There was a rumor floating around that bow hunters were not going to be able to harvest more than 1 bird/season much like gun hunters. Answer: Not true.
Question: Where in the rule making process is the wounded game tracking with a dog? They will be proposed soon and will be open for public comment. The rules may be in place this fall.
Those are the ones I remember, probably because I asked them. Anyway, the report is probably available on line, but I have my copy so I’m not gonna try to find it. Guess I’m just lazy that way.