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Who's the real enemy to deer....

H

hoosierhunter

Active Member
I've read so many threads about "issues" that hunters have and who's fault it really is. They range from:

Too many doe tags......
Late antler less season.....
Party hunting........
NR's........
Brandstad.....
DNR.........
Politicians.....
Insurance Companies.......

These are all very valid points and each is an extra arrow in the deer decline quiver, but it's missing the most important party and passing blame away from who really deserves it.

HUNTERS

It doesn't matter what seasons are passed or quotas are set until we educate and police ourselves. The buck literally and figuratively stops with us.

I mean what's the point to filling some else's shotgun buck tag unless the deer is the biggest you have ever shot?

Why go party hunting on your ground when you know numbers are down?

Why not call your buddies out for shooting too many deer?

Why even hunt the late rifle season?

Why haven't you written or called your representatives?

Why haven't you talked with your neighbors including the "bad" ones?


My point is that universally EVERYONE is not putting enough thought and fight into this. Either we heal as a team or we will all fail as individuals......
 
Agreed but to many people think they can grow deer like on tv with 80 acres not going to happen
 
Agree but unfortunately a very small percentage of hunters are as passionate about the quality of the deer herd as most of us that frequent Iowawhitetail. You can tell when these threads up most of us are very passionate about protecting what we have.

Unfortunately a lot of people are not. They do not hunt as much or really observe what is going on around them. They hunt a couple weekends of year and try to put down as much as they can. I am not saying it is wrong but I bet at least half of the hunters are like this.

The only way to curb it is to lower tag numbers. If they cannot get the tags, they cannot kill the deer.

For instance this late doe rifle season. I talked to a guy once that raved about the rifle season. He was telling me of this huge chunk of public that for the past couple of years they slaughtered everything that moved and just had a blast. The first year they shot over 30 and each year after less and less. The place sounded familiar and turns out it was a spot I hunt occasionally.

A couple weeks before we had this conversation I went down there shotgun hunting. It is a 1000 acre chunk of prime timber. We had a fresh snow. My buddy and I were the only ones in there and I was very excited. After walking around there were no deer tracks anywhere really. This place was always awesome. After talking to this guy it made sense.

I told him he that the place used to awesome and the slaughter of does has made it pretty much worthless. He said oh well I dont bowhunt there. It doesn't matter to me.

Tons of guys from up North head south for the novelty of killing does with rifles and do not care how the herd is doing since it is not where they primarily hunt.

It is just one example and you are 100% correct it is hunters shooting theirselves in the foot but unfortunately not everyone has the same mindset as a lot of us therefore quota numbers are going to have to curb it.

There was 31,373 available doe tags left at the end of this season. There is going to have to be some MAJOR doe tag reductions to make any dent in this. They are going to have to lower the quota in counties that sold out and then they are going to have to lower the quota in counties that did not sell out by the amount of tags not sold plus an additional % to make any dent in this. I can't see it happening.

For example Adair county. 2400 tags available 1416 still available. They could lower the quota to 1000 tags and everyone by next year will be happy thinking it was a drastic change. In reality the same number of deer will be killed and the same number of tags sold. If they want to lower the harvest they are going to have to lower the quota to like 500 knowing 1000 tags sold last year to make any dent in this.

Who knows what they will do.
 
Another factor that is rarely mentioned is the loss of CRP ground. When the deer herd was at its peak, we had lots of it. The high corn and bean prices also encouraged lots of wood lots to be cleared and fields tiled. I bet everyone of you can remember numerous great deer and pheasant spots that are now plowed fields. I bet the FB people are pretty pleased where we are going. The deer herd will bounce back, but only in areas that have good habitat, and only if us hunters lay off the does. Private ground owners with big tracts will still be able to shoot some does, but the good old days are probably over for the rest.
 
Liv4rut,

Sad to hear that your good spot went south. I am getting a feel for this party hunting and doe slaughter thing now. It seems like it takes only a few guys going berzerk killing 30 does to do real damage. Its not like 30 guys each get 1 doe tag and they have to work to get that one deer. In the end thats still 30 deer that are gone.

If I shot 30 deer where I am there would be nothing left, period.

What is the big fasination with shooting a deer with a rifle? I don't understand why somone wants to wack does with a rifle as fun?

If you want to bang away with a rifle go get an AR and 10 30 round mags and go to the range.

Iowa is not a live fire shooting gallery setup to amuse a few blood thirsty folks.

I can sit here and name a handful of species, crabs, canada geese, Ducks, striped Bass that have gone to almost zero due to mis-management and pure greed by sportsman.

a bushel of crabs aint enough for you in a day?
2 geese aint enough
how many cow stripers do you need? By the way a cow striper is liken to a mature doe. that single cow lays millions of eggs. A mature doe that may have 2 or 3 fawns is a good breeder and has expierence at raising fawns. If you want to kill any species and or wipe it out start at the root. The does are the stock that creates these big bucks but we already know that.

I could type forever here but what got broke in IOWA? what happened in the short span of 4 or 5 years? We should be on here raving how great this place is and or not saying anything at all and keeping it to ourself.

I'm not to enthused about anything going on right now other than paying the bills and trying to enjoy life. Maybe I and others needed this shot in the arm to reset the bar to a much lower expectation of quality and quanity when we go afield?

Somewhere someone said that this shooting thing is the latest hot fad and once they cant do it the people will go off to something else.

I really under estimated this situation as I thought the Iowa deer herd was in good hands but once again I was proven WRONG. People are people no matter what state they live in or are from and I have seen almost every good wild life/ game situation eventually fall on its face for one reason or another. Egg on face again......
 
Go Army,

I have seen it multiple times. One instance was Ledges state park in boone. Back in college it was nothing to see a lot of big bucks and does. They implemented a doe only hunt where they could take 50 does. Over the span of a couple years the place had a dramatic decrease in quantity and quality which spread into the numerous public areas around it.

Our farm is close to a state park. The park ranger was told by the dnr he was going to host a deer hunt and that 50 doe tags would be issued. The park ranger said there was not 50 deer in the place. They killed the few does in there and it has not been the same.

Two years ago there was a goup of about 25 does that found the park as a safe haven. They would come out at night into our neighbors lower field. Two guys shot 23 of them when they were yarded up as the farmer wants them dead. Our place which is the next farm over suffered bad from it. There were hardly any does anywhere as the does that were around got pushed into the park during shotgun season and then they got shot. We have killed 3 does off my dads farm in over 10 years of him owning it because everyone around slaughters them. The deer numbers are extremly low. My dad gets so frustrated about it.

On the other side of the farm two old boys shot over a dozen does last year off it during late muzz. They would sit on the fence and every doe that jumped across they shot. They shot a 160s buck too. When he fell one antler popped off. They then popped off the other antler and put a doe tag on it. They then shot another buck.

People dont get it. Deer to them are an infinite resource. If I was a multi millionaire I would just buy all the doe tags for my county each year. That would cause a stink but I bet in 2-3 years nobody would be complaining.
 
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I think Liv4rut nailed it, well said. The fact is that not all hunters have the same understanding, nor the same concern for the overall deer herd. There are plenty of guys who will keep shooting as long as their are tags and bullets to be found. They will recognize NOTHING until there are no deer left and then they will haphazardly blame something, somebody, ANYBODY else and no amount of explanation or reasoning will change their mind.

I would love to be dead wrong about this, but I think we are seeing the future of the Iowa deer herd now in terms of populations. The exception that I would make to that is the impact of EHD, obviously no one can predict or prevent EHD from happening and it happened to hit us hard during a time that we were already pretty vulnerable due to several years of over harvest in at least some areas.

Research the "Tragedy of the Commons" and I believe you will see a good analogy of what we are experiencing now.
 
Agreed!

Its simple, be selective on what you want to take, and stick to your plan.. be a "minimalist" if you will.. and preach to others to do the same.. 99% of those I've talked to are on the same page.

I had to jump on my shotgun group several days this year as I had 2 individuals who wanted to pull the trigger and get "first blood"... my response to that is we aren't hunting for meat, and if you are wanting meat and havent killed a buck, then you will wait till the last day or not hunt with me period. For 2014, its going to be kill your meat during archery, and nothing but bucks for gun.

I feel like an ass telling people that but in my group, you don't follow rules, your gone. And I'm pretty outspoken person as far as saying what's on my mind.
 
I believe a lot of focus in Iowa has been toward the wrong issues and the wrong crowd. The biggest issues from what I have seen are.... the late doe season, trespassing/poaching, high number of doe tags in areas that do not have a lot of does and not enough in areas that need them (vice versa). Too many seasons.

The positive is great timing of the gun season (December).

Every state has season structure or tag issues that hurt the deer/buck population, the key is to have the fewest issues, which I think Iowa had for many years, but that seems to be slowly changing.

With that being said, the state/DNR or politicians has to regulate the deer herd for it to be effective, volunteer and/or abstaining from harvest does not seem to work.
 
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