Jmitch wrote:Things have changed that's for sure. I think cwd changed things more than people will admit. I remember hunting the western dane county area before cwd and it always sounded like a war zone. Multiple large groups all driving almost every day and tons and tons of shooting. Lots of multiple shot volleys and clip emptying too. Cant even imagine how many deer died that way. Also that area in particular was insane with the amount of deer before the eridaction stuff hit. Like 75 to 100 deer per square mile. They were everywhere but it's not like that anymore. Every one of the groups i used to know of that drove doesnt hunt that way anymore. Most never hunt in that group setting or drive anymore at all.
I hunt a different area now but still see the same changes. People quit driving and the properties that used to account for a ton of dead deer may only see a few die now. I can think of 2 large groups that used to hunt together as recently as 5 years ago. That would account for 15 to 25 kills within a mile of two of each other now those same properties may kill 5 combined but not because the deer arent there just the people hunting them hunting differently and are waiting for a big buck instead of killing anything. Not sure where we go from here but I dont think it's a sky is falling situation either. Personally I'm looking forward to a good 2020 because I know locally atleast lots of bucks made it thru rifle season successfully and most people are done for the year now.
I think you have a pretty good perspective on the overall situation.
It seems that a lot of guys recall the 1999-2001 peak years because they remember a lot of action, etc. and tend to use that as their metric for what deer numbers should be.
But those years were an anomaly, and not really a healthy situation for the deer herd in general.
I recall the 80's as being a pretty good balance of reasonably healthy deer numbers coupled with decent chances of success for hunters willing to put in any amount of effort at all.
We're evidently pretty close to that now, and I for one think that's a pretty
good thing.
We're going to have some pretty decent deer hunting in much of Wisconsin in the years ahead.