So let me run this scenario by everyone and hear what is your opinions. Last few winters have been very hard on our deer population and numbers are way down. Some say they should have closed the season for a couple years some say no. But what they did do is shorten all the seasons from a mth long to 2 weeks. So with that being said how many of you would still hunt whitetail? If so are you passing on any doe that walks by and holding out for a buck, or its any deer fair game?

that's a tough one. im not sure what id do. I know for me it would be very hard not to hunt. even if you know you wouldn't shoot one, just having a bow, sittin in the woods would be worth it. feel dumb sittin there without a bow!! honestly I don't think one doe would hurt.

I guess it depends on weather you are hunting for horns or food. If your a trophy hunter the I would pass altogether, hunting for food how do you pass any deer, especially while bow hunting.

I'd hunt and take into account what LBShooter said. One doe isn't going to make a difference. If you got the habitat, they will rebound easily and quickly. God Bless

I would just shoot one young buck if I got the opportunity, and leave the rest alone to breed & reproduce.

Rick

I hunt for food but its not that I have to hunt for food. Now when you say one doe wont make a difference as one person your right...but lets say you have 1000 hunters bow, gun whatever saying the same thing. Know what I mean? I am not asking this to let you guys decide if I should kill or not, that is a choice I will make when I have the opportunity. Im just curious as I was listening to some other guys at the hunting shop discuss our deer population we have right now and it got me thinking. One guy made the argument that if you shoot a doe you potentially take three deer out of the population so he will only shoot bucks. I was thinking if you shoot a buck what will breed that doe. Seems almost like an argument that has no winner.

I would hunt. I hunted for several years before I began killing deer consistently so that scenario would not be a new one. It wouldn't change my desire to kill mature deer so I would hold out.

Mother Nature has her way and as the old saying goes , it's not nice to fool mother nature. I read some where that deer have a way of knowing that their numbers are down, and they kick out twins and triplets to make up for the loss. If your hunting for food and you get the chance for a deer take it, with the numbers being what they are most everyone hunting is not going to score.

I thought you were talking bowhunting. One doe by bowhunters is not excessive. Gun hunters is another story, they can reach out ten times farther than a bowhunter. Skeet

If the population is still high enough to allow a gun harvest of does, it isn't as bad as you think. It sure sounded to me like everyone answered the question you asked in the original post as well. As far as the bucks to breed, imagine your on an island with 10 beautiful women. Your the only man. In this imagination, your sole role would be to "breed" those women to propagate the population. I'm certain you'd get it done. Just as the bucks will get it done eventually. Even if only one survived. Your over thinking this is you believe for one minute that hunters are going to kill enough bucks to retard that process. If their is good habitat, I imagine very few deer are going to be killed period. Less competition for resources means less time spent on their feet to consume them. Which translates into more secretive animals when given the opportunity. God Bless

Thanks for the opinion everyone. Skeets I bowhunt I mentioned gun hunting in one of my post because when gun season opens they hunt the same deer as the bowhunters do.

I would still hunt, I only take one deer a year now. kids gone and wife doesn't eat deer meat so just feeding myself, a lot would depend on buck to doe ratio in area witch sex I would shoot.

The season length should have remained the same for bowhunting. Shorten the gun season ! If you work you get what....4 days of bowhunting? I wouldn't even bother !

Pa knocked our deer herd down really low in some areas a few years ago during their initial campaign to reduce the overall population. I know people who hunted for a week or two to catch a glimpse of one. Some guys would shoot the only deer they could find, some wouldn't. I hunted those years, continuing to buy doe tags, but kept moving around and did my own assessments of the areas I hunted and would only target does if I could justify it by the number of deer I saw. If I didn't see enough to justify killing them, I hunted small game.... which I would often rather do anyway.

Buck only.

If I'm hunting a area where the deer #'s are so low that seeing 1 or 2 deer a week is the norm. I'm killing the 1st good opportunity!

I would hunt the most likely to not make it. That means this years fawns. I like them best anyway. I read a study done some years ago where the opinion of the management officer was that this is the way he would want to see it done because with the highest chance of death being with the young, killing an adult was almost assuring two deer dead by winters end rather than one, had only the younger been harvested. Made sense to me.

I would go but target only bucks. If it was that bad it would seem like the state would have already put in doe restrictions. I agree with WV mountaineer.

I would take one deer under that situation. The season shorten by two weeks addresses the low numbers.

Too many conditional responses to even try. If I had a lot of deer in my area I would kill what I needed if I could. With me, I have never put a burden on the resource personally so I do what is allowed by the DNR.

That is a scenario that has been playing out for the last 7-8 years around me, I've seen only one deer all year long, when I first seen her she had 2 fawns, now down to 1 and she is way passed spooked, I have the habitat, but between the brown it's down crowd, farmers who shoot them on sight, and poaching, our deer herd has become decimated beyond belief, when 20 fellas leave our league shoot to see a couple deer 4 miles away.... It's bad. Hunting has been a part of me since I was a kid, back then we hunted for food, now hunting has been turned into a status symbol where the hunter has been replaced by the killer,( they are legalizing rifles here in 2015) and it makes me sick to my stomach, if I can hunt this year it won't be around here, no one will hunt my property this year, I worked all my life to have this little bit of heaven, and I can't in good conscience hunt it, and that is the saddest part of all.

Staying within the law ought to protect the herd enough for a good rebound....but if it is the common belief that too many will be taken because the 'law' is allowing too many killed, despite the shorter season, maybe shoot only one, and make it something other than a doe capable of raising her twins come spring.

I'd still hunt but buck only and only 1.

If you have a viable hunting ethic, you already know what you would or should do. I understand getting opinions, but you still have to make a decision based on what you believe...not what I tell you. If it's so bad that they have shortened the season, then maybe that would tell you how to respond. Personally, if the situation was at critical mass, I would find something else to hunt that year. Grouse, squirrels and other small game.

Seems to me a lot of areas were badly overpopulated and mother nature put things back into balance somewhat. I'm sure some areas were hurt much worse than others, but it's not supposed to be like shooting fish in a barrel either. It's hunting, not shooting.

I wouldn't hunt, but I wouldn't begrudge someone else who made a different decision.

I will never shoot at a jack rabbit - back when I was a kid, there were millions of jack rabbits out here in the west (California, Nevada - think: Mojave Desert). You'd see them on the side of the road in the middle of the day, watching the cars drive by. The roads were plastered with dead jack rabbits. I remember Howard Hill's short that shows him hunting jack rabbits in Simi Valley, CA - that whole area is subdivisions now, and I doubt Howard could get within 50 yards of a jack rabbit these days, most jacks start running from me before I'm within 100 yards. I don't know why the population crashed - environmental causes, diseases, thousands upon thousands of yahoos with 10/22s using rabbits for target practice - who knows, but jacks seem almost a rare sight these days. Maybe after several generations of hunting by humans with 22s they've all gone nocturnal? Who knows... There's so few jacks now a days, and when you do see them it's inevitably at night, that I decided several years ago to simply stop shooting at them.

Would not hurt deer population at all to hunt with a bow. Car deer kill, predators, will take far more. Mother nature will not only take away, but also give back. Does will have less stress and more food, so drop more twins that will survive. Go Hunt.

no does for two yrs, and 1 buck with atleast 4 points on one side. that should give the population a chance. and unlimmited yotes, 24hrs a day, 365 days a year.

Wondering if maybe baiting should be outlawed. I know a lot of guys run a pile of corn all summer, climb in their stand opeining day and kill the doe or buck that has been coming to said pile for weeks. Let's put "hunting" back into the hunt. I'll bet that would reduce the harvest dramatically and increase the herd proportionally thus eliminating the need for a reduced or closed season.

Marshall said...

"I would hunt the most likely to not make it. That means this years fawns. I like them best anyway. I read a study done some years ago where the opinion of the management officer was that this is the way he would want to see it done because with the highest chance of death being with the young, killing an adult was almost assuring two deer dead by winters end rather than one, had only the younger been harvested. Made sense to me. "

That was Val Geist. And he oughtta know....

Actually, though, since fawns typically have a 50% winterkill/die-off rate regardless, there is only a 50% chance that a fawn taken by a hunter will have any net impact on herd size whatsoever.

But adult deer have very good survivability, so one dead doe typically guarantees a net loss to the herd of 1.5 animals as of one year down the line, assuming one fawn per doe, on average; if the does in an area typically drop twins, it's a net loss of two.

Also, getting a fawn though its first winter is a stress on the dam and the fawn competes with her for food, so in an area with tough winters, a doe who loses a fawn in the fall is more likely to drop twins...

So... If you want to help the herd come back, you can reduce it by .5 animals (fawn) or by 1 (buck) or by 1.5-2 (doe).

Take your pick.

And hell, yes, ban all forms of baiting immediately.

If if were my home state, I would let the Department of Conservation decide how best to manage the population, then follow the rules. For the most part they have done a pretty good job, and it is their job.

I hunt the same places every year and if the deer are scarce than I let the does walk. I'm not going to shoot the only deer I see. Last year there were a lot of deer and I killed a doe and a buck.

Be legal first, then eat straps if you can?

I would still hunt for mature Bucks only, and give a "pass" on any Does for the next couple of years. Hopefully the herd will rebound in the next few years. Good luck on what YOU plan to do.

Pass on the does if you want to build the populations. Basic wildlife Management fundamentals.

I live in a unlimited doe tag area, worse than a bad winter. I say worse because its been quite a few years now. And the does are thinned out.

To answer your question its seems dumb to let a doe walk. In all probability it will get shot by someone that already has already killed several this year. But at the same time, so far, I've left them walk.

I would hold off. Lets face it 10% of the bow hunters kill 90% of the deer/Elk no matter how long the season.

I would go for a decent buck only. Been doing that for 30+ years anyway. Given I'm a still hunter only, odds are heavily balanced to the deer, and I couldn't see myself impacting the population.

yes, still hunt whitetail. Any deer fair game. The adjustment has been made already.

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